When comparing MacDown vs Markdown Plus, the Slant community recommends MacDown for most people. In the question“What are the best Markdown editors for OS X?”MacDown is ranked 5th while Markdown Plus is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose MacDown is:

MacDown is a free and open source editor influenced by [Mou](http://25.io/mou/). It's released under the MIT license.

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Pros

Pro

Free and open source

MacDown is a free and open source editor influenced by Mou. It's released under the MIT license.

Pro

Real-time split-screen preview

MacDown's main view is split into two panels. The user types on the left and the Markdown is rendered on the fly in the right panel. This helps users to better understand the way they are formatting their document.

Pro

Markdown previews can be customized with CSS

You can use a CSS file to customize the rendered output and the file preview you are working on will display the rendered Markdown with the custom CSS styling on top.

Pro

Supports syntax highlighting in fenced code blocks

MacDown has syntax highlighting support for various languages when writing code in fenced code blocks.

Pro

Support for GFM

Pro

Ideal for day-to-day programmers' work and MarkDown novices alike

Using MacDown for the notorious README.md use case gets you going without reading any manual or requiring any configuration values. Think of it as a sort of TextEdit for MarkDown files. Thus its shortcomings - neither powerful nor versatile - turn out to be a PRO for novices trying to jump on the MarkDown bandwagon. Open its help and you'll immediately find yourself editing the MacDown's MarkDown help file, a MarkDown primer with some MacDown menus and configuration added.

Pro

Good auto-completion

MacDown has a good built-in auto-completion engine for Markdown symbols.

Pro

Support for table of contents

Markdown Plus can easily create a clear table of contents.

Pro

Good support and updates

Also provides a separate app for Markdown display only with same specs: Markdown Mate

Pro

Custom containers

Supports 4 custom containers (success, info, warning, danger).

Pro

Extended Markdown

Extended Markdown is supported.

Pro

Supports multiple markdown

Supports:

Task Lists

Math Formula

Flowchart Syntax

Sequence Diagram Syntax

Gantt Diagram Syntax

Emoji

Fontawesome

Ionicons

Cons

Con

Not very versatile

MacDown is not very powerful or versatile. It's not customizable or extendable. This is what makes it so simple, but it's not for people who want more from their tools.

Con

Frequently fails to update the display and/or flat out hangs

Must often restart MacDown.

Con

The Markdown preview is rather heavy on the CPU

The Markdown preview needs a lot of resources to keep rendering on-the-fly after each keystroke. A single keystroke in the editor panel may trigger up to 5 seconds of max-CPU usage.

Con

Not free

Unlike some other comparable apps, Markdown Plus isn't free and has a purchase price of $14,99.

Con

No email encryption

Does not encrypt email when exporting to HTML.

Con

Exports to 4 different media

Markdown Plus can export to HTML, PNG, PDF and Paginated PDF.

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